Lincolnshire pie and sausage producer George Adams Pork Products is looking to its new enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to underpin future growth through tighter control of the production process.

It is implementing SSI’s TROPOS system across its six plants, so that planning, production and financial reporting all share a common database – giving the company an unparalleled single view of its business.

Too Much Stock

Typical of many companies, George Adams had evolved several spreadsheet-based systems. But data collection and representation were inconsistent, making it difficult to obtain accurate yield figures and other key information for costing, planning and financial management.

Fundamentally, the company needed the ability to match its output more closely to the often rapidly changing requirements of its customers – mainly the major supermarket chains – without maintaining overly large stocks of raw materials or finished products.

Operations director Mark Wood describes the situation that had evolved at George Adams: “It was not a joined-up system and there were many issues. It was difficult to maintain; it was becoming so complex that we had to keep upgrading PCs to cope; and we saw the need to capture data right through from stores to dispatch and have it in real time so that we could control the stock.

“All the departments were working in ‘silos’. They knew the plan, but each department decided what it was going to run – and when – to optimise efficiencies. But that wasn’t necessarily what the next department needed at that particular time. We were fulfilling the overall orders for the day, but we were carrying far too much stock. So we decided to re-look at the whole thing.”

To complicate the picture, there are huge variances between the supermarket chains’ forecasts and their actual orders. One of George Adams’ top customers cannot achieve more than 30% accuracy with week-ahead forecasts because of the vagaries of consumer demand. Short-term factors can have a major impact on orders. For example, if an unexpected spell of good weather in one area entices people out of doors, the resulting demand for pies may exceed forecasts for that region, cascading to additional orders for George Adams.

Shelf Life and Forecasting

A further complication reflects the need to maximise the relatively short shelf life of most fresh products. Manufacturing has to be paced so orders can be turned round in six to 14 hours, hastening their arrival in the shops.

Production is planned to ensure fresh stock is maintained at 70% of daily sales forecasts. However, there is capacity to produce another 30% – and more – according to need.

Some products can be held in the factory for a day or so if orders fall off, but this reduces the time they can be displayed subsequently on supermarket shelves.

Mark Wood says: “A pork pie’s sell-by date isn’t about microbes, it’s about the fact that the pastry eventually goes soggy. You can’t extend its life.

“We are second-guessing the stores all the time – which is why our TROPOS system has several forecasting capabilities. It’s a real challenge for us – we are shot if we fail to deliver, but we can throw away thousands of pounds’ worth of stock if we over-produce and it goes out of life.”

Roll Out

George Adams’ move from multiple spreadsheets to integrated ERP was unusual in that it was already a TROPOS user, but on a limited scale.

Mark Wood says: “We had installed TROPOS about five or six years earlier, as a purchasing system, but it had not been rolled out any further. This time, we looked at other systems but decided that, as we had already paid for TROPOS, we might as well make it work even harder.”

Radio Frequency Network

The George Adams plant at Ruskington was first to go live with the expanded TROPOS system, which integrates end-to-end data from the production line using barcode labels to track batches of meat through the process. Touchscreen PCs and handheld scanners gather data from the shopfloor, via a radio frequency (RF) network.

SSI’s Gerry Boundy says: “Ruskington is one of the first completely RF networked systems in food manufacturing. This significantly reduces the need for cabling, which is a health and safety issue in food environments, and allows greater flexibility in the factory. The hardware is rated IP65 – a standard rating for the food industry – ensuring that it will not contaminate food and that it can withstand the rigours of the environment.”

Phased Build Up

TROPOS is being extended to George Adams’ new frying plant, also at Ruskington, the other pie and sausage plant at its Spalding head office, and its cooked meats division’s two plants at Boston and one at Frampton.

Mark Wood says: “TROPOS can perform many different functions – we are probably only using about a third of what it’s capable of doing. The intention is to build it up. At this stage it’s all about planning and shop-floor data capture; the second phase is to get all our material variances – stock control, de-stocking, and other projects – to deliver the savings.

“By improving the accuracy of forecasts and enabling better production planning and process control, TROPOS will give Ruskington a one-off de-stocking saving of £300,000 to £400,000 on raw materials”, says Mark Wood. “We will carry only what we need for the next week or so. At the moment we carry 3-4 weeks’ stock.”

TROPOS will also provide enhanced reporting, which will enable managers to keep a tighter rein on the business by monitoring yields, costs and profitability more closely.

Tailored Screens

The Ruskington roll-out was gradual, with TROPOS coming into play alongside the existing systems which were phased out once there was full confidence in the new, virtually paperless system.

Gerry Boundy says: “Using the TROPOS software development toolkits we provided tailored screens for the butchery, at the front end of the process, and for production recording, which is a generic application covering all the recording from butchered meat to pies and sausages delivered into stock, to reflect the ways of working in those areas.”

Preventing Human Error

TROPOS is set to provide comprehensive product traceability because it will be automated. It also helps prevent human error on the shop floor.

“Because you can pre-program factory disciplines into the TROPOS system, it won’t allow you to use the wrong ingredients. In the past, we periodically found that someone would put in a wrong seasoning or a wrong ingredient. It would be picked up later in the process, by which time we could do nothing about it, so the product was rejected. With TROPOS we can prevent errors – or at least pick them up a lot sooner,” says Mark Wood.

Quality Assurance

“There’s a lot more we can do with the quality assurance side of it. Frampton and Boston want to put the quality module on. We can tag temperatures, so when we do traces we can also pull up what the temperature was. It will develop into a very good QA system in the long run.”

Benefits

He says there is absolutely no doubt that TROPOS will continue to deliver benefits over time. “One of the things we were conscious of, with putting in a system of this nature, was that it is very complex to do in terms of the hardware and software, and also the culture change required. We tried to keep the project as simple as possible so that we didn’t overextend it.

SSI Support

“We had a lot of support from SSI to get it working. This is a sophisticated system and we have had to learn how to manage it, but the potential is huge in terms of what we can do with the system and its capabilities. We see a lot of benefits in product development, using TROPOS Active, and through incorporating our building control systems.

“At this stage we are not looking at finite scheduling of the production line because of the complexities resulting from short batch processing, orders changing and the desire to allow people on the line to retain ownership of that.” SSI have supplied an interactive “Planners Workbench” that makes it easy to adjust production schedules to suit demand.

The Challenge

Mark Wood says: “On the whole I wouldn’t change what I’m doing now. We’ve got two or three years of fundamental development going forward. The challenge will be ourselves, because the TROPOS system is infinitely expandable. What it ultimately delivers depends on the imagination and drive of the individuals running it on the site.